25 December 2011

Merry Christmas

May Father Frost have brought you all that your heart has desired.

To the New Year!

23 October 2011

The End of a War

Last Friday, the Americans announced that their army will leave Iraq as of 31 December.

One must wonder if an American general will symbolically walk across the border into Kuwait in the same way that Red Army General Gromov was the last Soviet soldier to walk out of Afghanistan in 1989.

11 September 2011

The Eleventh Day of September

I have noticed that the Americans have been commemorating the day they call 9/11. It is of no importance that Europeans may regard that as 11.9. It is the Americans' day to observe.

It is slightly curious that they are spending so much time and effort marking the day that began President Bush's "Global War on Terror". That may be due to the point that, other than the slaying of Osama bin Ladin, one may wonder what other days there are to celebrate. The American victory in Afghanistan, which they were celebrating when the leadership of the Taleban fled to Pakistan, has turned into bitter ashes. The American conquest of Iraq has led, in turn, to a resurgent Iran with Iraq becoming a virtual Iranian vassal.

It may be no wonder why, then, the Americans are marking this day.

10 February 2011

68 Years Ago-- The Limit of German Expansion

The German Sixth Army surrendered at Stalingrad. 90,000 Fascist soldiers were marched into captivity in the Soviet Gulags. The Nazis had proclaimed that the rules of civilized handling of prisoners of war did not apply to their war against the USSR. The Soviets were more than happy to treat Fascist soldiers as harshly as they treated their own convicts. Regardless, the number of Fascist soldiers captured was almost insignificant compared to the numbers of soldiers who were killed on both sides during the battle.

In November of 1942, Soviet forces encircled the Nazi forces who were besieging the city and the besiegers became the besieged. The Germans from the outside tried to lift the encirclement but were readily defeated. The Germans trapped inside never attempted to break out on their own. They sat there and slowly starved as the Red Army squeezed the German area of control ever smaller and smaller.

The German surrender marked what is now regarded as the turning point of the Great Patriotic War. Over two years of hard fighting remained, but the onrushing tide of German expansion was stopped.